Abang (1981)

Synopsis

Fuad as the eldest brother of Dins' family is returning after he left for a decade ago. Everyone in the family are worrying about his return will bring effects to their lifestyle especially 2 of his younger brother - Faizal and Farid.

Faizal and his wife Mona afraid Fuad will destroy family happiness they are having now with their son - Feroz. Furthermore, his second younger brother and his wife Nazreen worry Fuad will take back all their properties. However , the reasons Fuad coming back is because he knew himself suffer from a serious disease and going to die soon. He hope to come back to his homeland and reunite with his family. Besides, he hope to resolve the problems his siblings facing.

Faizal ask Fuad about the reasons he returned. Fuad have no choice but to tell Faizal the reasons he is coming back. After that , Fuad request to meet Mona personally before Faizal go back. Fuad went to Faizal house to look for Mona. He seek for her forgiveness regarding he leave her decade ago. Fuad even kneel in front of Mona but Mona also unable to forgive him.

Dina, youngest sister of Fuad is a singer at disco. Fuad is trying to persuade Dina to pursue her dream. In addition , he also stop Farid from hurting people after he get to know his action form Nazreen.

Fuad go back to hometown with his mother. He have a good time with peoples in the village and he donates money to do charity such as mosque in his hometown, and blind people. His family member start to feel weird about Fuads' behavior. When they find out the real reason of Fuad come back , Fuad already die.

Film Journal

I like Fuad characteristic in this film. He is very family based people with doing anything also will consider from his family members perspective. He rather to suffer himself instead of trouble his family. This is shown where he hide his disease from his family and left to London to get treatment alone. Although this action seems selfish, but he do not want his family members worry about him until give up their happiness. Fuad has fully shown his masculinity in this film. For example, he try to stop Farid from hurting people once he get to know it from Nazreen. He will consider about his family first before he make any decision.

I dislike some parts of editing such as flashback when Faizal come back during Fuad and Mona conversation going on. It's hard to understand the purpose of inter-cut of the earlier shot in between their conversation. It will make audiences confuse about the earlier shot inserted in between.

Fuad and family practices a lot hybridity. We can see they practicing modern mix traditional lifestyle. They are traditional, where we can see that Fuad family is patriarchy family. Everyone obey to the elder one especially father and the eldest brother. For instance , no one in the family allow to absence the meeting call up by Fuad father. Furthermore, when Farid blaming Fuad after he drunk. Fuad shouted at Farid and said he not qualify to blame him because Fuad is the elder brother. Although Fuad went oversea for 10 years, but he did not forget his root. He go back to his hometown with his mother and best friend Diaman. They play at the waterfall where he went he was a child. Other than that , he also play traditional games with kids from the village.Nevertheless, He went to the mosque to complete his prayer and donate money to mosque as well as blind people.

For modernity, Fuad family is very rich. They are also an open-minded family where Dina allowed to become a singer. Besides , they are educated and believe in knowledge where we can see from their conversation they will add in some English words. Moreover, planning plays an important role too. For instance, Fuad persuade his father not to sell the land as he knows that the land price will increase in the future. In addition, when Dila tell Fuad about her dream is to build long house and gather all the artist to live together. Fuad motivate her to save money and not to waste her money on the car to fulfill her dream.

The biggest example will be both welcome home party at Fuads' home and hometown. Welcome home party hold at Fuads' house represent modernity where the party invited a lot of their business partner. There are multi-races attended the party and alcohol been served in the party. Dila wearing a strapless dress where a traditional Malay female would not do so. On the other hand, welcome party hold at hometown represent traditional. This is shown by whole villager celebrate together to welcome him back to hometown. Everyone is wearing traditional Malay clothes and busy with arranging the party. Traditional performance such as traditional Malay dance perform during the party going on.

In conclusion, there are quite a few forms of hybridity we can found from this movie such as Experiences or influences dependent hybrids, cultural hybridity, and global transculturalism. All the forms of hybridity above can be found from Fuad and his family. Peoples keep on changing their identity without noticing it. Peoples easily been influence by their living environment. Even though Fuad practicing hybridity but he did not forget about his origin identity. This is shown where he come back to his homeland to reunite with his family after 10 years and choose to go back to his hometown to end his life journey. This prove that although how a people practices modernism , they won't forget their tradition and real identity.